Once Again, With Darkness
by Eternal Nocturne
Summary: Link returns to Hyrule after many years and visits an old friend. Oneshot.


**-Once Again, With Darkness-**

* * *

When he stepped into the courtyard there was already mud on his boots, caked thick on the heel and in dark chunks on the sides. The rain fell the way rain on Sunday mornings always seemed to fall, light and ethereal but also perpetual, unending, indifferent. He had hardly felt it at first, but now it was cold on his skin. Six hours on horseback through the dawn had soaked through his tunic and made swamps within his boots.

He might have been a stranger to the lands he once called home. The horsekeepers at the stables were different and spoke in a thicker tongue, not the airy Hylian he'd heard throughout his childhood. When they took his horse they'd scarcely batted an eye at him. The others had been warmer; they knew his horse, and they knew him, and it was always _how are you_ and _nice to see you again_ and later _long time no see_ and later _been a while, hasn't it_ and later nothing at all.

The horsekeepers raised a brow at him, at his clothes.

"You look sorta familiar. Come here often?"

He said he didn't, and he paid them for their services and left. As he walked through the streets of Castle Town, not one soul looked his way. He found it comforting that at least one thing hadn't changed, and it was that the bustle of Castle Town still sounded the same even in rain—the same people hurrying about their day, fretting over their business, haggling with the street vendors. But that was where the similarities ended. The grand fountain in the middle of the town had been replaced, and when he stood with his legs touching the fountain edge, the water splashed him and pushed him back as if he was unwanted, unwelcome.

Stores had been redone, torn down and brought back up with flashier paint and brighter lights. The railing hugging the streets on the west side of town were even more derelict than before, threatening to succumb to their own rust and wear. The puppies had grown into dogs; the dogs had died and left their bones for the puppies to chew. Somewhere buried in a dark alley between an apothecary and an old blacksmith's shop was a bone he'd left for a particular puppy that would always be at his feet the moment he stepped into town. But now he could not remember the location, nor could he remember the puppy.

The guards at the Castle gates eyed each other warily. He spoke of himself in the purest Hylian he could muster, but he knew—as they did—that the language had not touched his tongue in a number of years. He enunciated his vowels with the drawl of the southern kingdoms; his sibilants were laced with a northern hiss. There were long pauses between his sentences.

"I've come to see the princess," he said, and as the words left his mouth he realized that what he should have said was _queen._

They opened the gates for him, eventually, and an escort led him to the courtyards behind the Castle. It was quiet again, save for the pattering rain against brick. The escort took leave, and he walked to the back, stopping underneath the shadow of an oak. When he was a child, it had just been a sapling, tiny and frail, and nobody thought it would survive its first winter. Now it towered above him and dropped leaf-spoons of water on his head, one at a time in succession, taunting, mocking.

She was there, on the other side. She hadn't noticed him until he turned the corner and knelt down beneath the oak. With elegant steps she glided to him and knelt down as he had, careful not to damage her dress. She smiled ear to ear.

"Hi, Link."

There was a long pause. He didn't look at her; his eyes were down and locked into place. A frown marked his lips, parting when he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Zelda."

Her ears twitched at the sound of his voice. How long it had been.

"There's nothing you need to be sorry for," she said, trying to hold her smile. "I—"

" _I'm sorry._ "

He dug his fists into the mud and bowed his head to her. "I should have never left. You needed me. Hyrule needed me. I failed everyone."

Her smile faded. "But— But you came back."

"What sort of Farore's Chosen runs when his people need him most?" He shook his head, bit his lip. "I'm a coward."

"If you're a coward, all other men in Hyrule are Cuccos," she laughed, trying to ease the tension. The rain fell steadily, and the ravens began to gather once more at the edges of the courtyard. "Look up, Link. Look at me, please."

He couldn't. She dropped her gaze and stared at the hands that rested on her lap.

"When we were younger, it wasn't even a question," he spoke, "as if the Goddesses had destined us for a shared eternity. That's how it was—you remember, right?"

She nodded. Her words slipped out slowly, cautiously. "We could have had that, you know."

"We could have had that. But we didn't."

A bitterness shot through her heart and his. She clasped her palms together.

"Were you happy with him, Zelda?"

She didn't answer.

"The guards didn't want to talk about him. They kept looking at each other when I asked about you, too. They only let me in because they were afraid of the Goddesses smiting them." He laughed. "Right. Nothing changes."

"He was kind to the people," she said after a while. "A suitable choice for king."

When the wind woke and came in from the west, he stopped talking. He looked up, finally, though not at her. His eyes rested on the boughs of the oak above them, its leaves fluttering with rain and wind. In the sky the morning sun was ready to rise from the clouds at last, six hours late but lambent despite.

"Link," she said, "please. Let's talk somewhere else less gloomy. I'll ask the servants to make us some tea. You can stay in the guest rooms, just like before. We can pester the guards again, run around in the—"

"Did it hurt when he killed you?"

She felt the knife in her throat. The blood ran both ways into her stomach and out through her lips, flooding her lungs, staining her palms. She felt his kick in her ribs, the bones piercing her flesh, and when she screamed the blood shot from her throat and hissed as it met the fireplace. With a thud she collapsed onto the floor, hair undone, dress stained, and when the guards found her later that evening there was already a thick layer of blood that joined her with the marble below.

"I know it was him," he said. "It had to be. Nobody else could get that… _close_ to you, anymore."

She stared at the dirt, breathing into her hands.

"He was good to me," she said. "He was good to me. He was good to me. He was good to me. He was good to me. We had children—three. He would never, he would never—"

"I know you didn't want to marry him," he said, and he stood up, eyes locked on the gravestone that carried her name. "But you loved Hyrule. And so do I."

He lingered, then turned his back at once and headed toward the exit. Wide-eyed, she reached a hand out and called after him.

"Don't leave," she said. "We need to talk— We need to talk— Link, _can you hear me?_ "

"I'll make up for my lost time," he said, his voice hushed within his breath. "Nobody remembers me as a hero anyway."

He flipped on the hood of his cloak and moved his hand to the sword that hung at his waist. At the doorway opposite to where he entered, he stopped, and, taking her chance, she thrust herself at him, reaching as if doomed. But she fell—through him, through the earth, into the darkness she'd forgotten only when he'd stepped into the courtyard and knelt at her grave. She screamed, but the wind silenced her voice, and the rain annulled the chill of her touch.

He went through the door.

"I'll be with you soon, Zelda."

~x~X~x~

 _ **A/N: Hello yes I specialize in cliched stories about the same thing over and over. Tune in next week for another brand-new never-before-seen rendition of "Sappy ZeLink but not really ZeLink because someone is dead or in the process of becoming dead and everyone is overly melodramatic for no particular reason oh and also some blood and stuff because why not"**_

 _ **...It's good writing exercise though ;)**_

 _ **-Eternal Nocturne-**_

 _ **Once Again, With Darkness - Completed February 20, 2017**_


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